Who are they kidding

A blog post and rant about Portland's public transportation system TRIMET.
The original post is HERE!

Hello everyone. I really had to stop working in my miniature flower garden and come inside to write this before I forgot. The public transit system in Portland, OR known as TriMet is calling itself the number one system in the country. I am here to tell them, they are LYING!
     Let me start with line number 9. The drivers are rude and arrogant. Always five minutes to two hours late.
Sometimes they are even five to thirty minutes early, and if you ride public transportation as your number one way of getting around the city, such as to school, work, home, doctors, etc… Even a bus or train showing up one minute early and not waiting until their scheduled time to arrive before departing, it has some major consequences. Fortunately in Portland and the surrounding areas, most employers and schools and various other organizations know this and try to be lenient. However this usually means a person has to leave even earlier than they normally would and is now severely early. This takes away from home time with family and friends. It takes away from things they need to do. I always leave home usually an hour before I absolutely need to, before the scheduled time that I find on the TriMet website, or by calling trip planning assistance. Do you want to know what the funny thing is? Nine times out of ten, I show up with only minutes to spare or I show up late, even though I left far earlier than I was told to do.
This is all just on the number 9 as I stated before. 95% of the drivers border on personalities so hostile and rude that I would almost rather walk miles to get into downtown Portland, or wherever I happen to be going at the moment. When you call into TriMet to complain, they listen to you, then actually make up excuses for their drivers and ignore you. They never do anything for you. You spend forever on hold when you tell someone you want to lodge a complaint. One day a few months ago the driver got up out of his seat and pushed a six year old girl back off the bus because she was attempting to get on while I was attempting to get off the bus at the same time. Now, while etiquette and rules state that you wait until passengers that are disembarking get off first before getting on, you do not lay a hand on your passengers. Not especially children, but not ANYONE! I grabbed his hand and threw him back and told him not to ever touch anyone on his buses ever again. He actually tried to tell me that I would never be allowed on the TriMet buses ever again, but I called TriMet right then while on the bus holding up traffic. I told them I was going to call the police on their driver for assaulting a six year old girl.
They, of course, made excuses for him, assured me that I wouldn’t be kicked off their buses and hung up on me. Two days later I got on the bus again and he was the damned driver. Now, how exactly does that work? If I were a company and one of my employees was assaulting one of my customers, I would not only fire him, but I would file charges against him with the police. I called TriMet again while I stood at the front of the bus next to him so he could hear me. I told them if they did not do something about the driver immediately, I would personally call the police and have them take a look at the camera footage. They decided to take a look at it themselves and I got a phone call back the following day saying they had terminated that driver. Too little, too late. I have heard drivers on that line cussing out passengers as well. Of course, if I want to go anywhere, I have pretty much no choice but to take that bus. It is the only bus that will get me anywhere in my area.
My husband and I finally bought mountain bikes the other day on his birthday. Now we can take our bikes to the train transit center and avoid the number 9 completely, especially considering TriMet does nothing about their drivers at all.
            Oh, and while I know this is convenient for the elderly and handicapped, it is not convenient for everyone else. Putting up bus stops every block to half block so the buses have to stop every five seconds actually slows things down. If they would just space things out a little more, maybe only put them every block if they are being placed in front of apartment complexes, which I could understand.
           
     I could go on and on and on about the rest of their system, but I think you get the drift. Most of the lines are just like the number 9, it just so happens that the number 9 is the worst of them all. I would however like to address one last issue. TriMet has what they like to call a “Free Zone” within the downtown area. Buses, trains and the streetcar cannot charge you to ride in that area. They are planning on doing away with the free zone completely, even though they do not pay for it. That area is sponsored by local businesses to encourage people. They are also getting rid of transfers and setting it up so that you have to pay for each and every single ride you take. If you get off the number 9 to get on the number 71 to go in a completely different direction, you will no longer be able to use a transfer. You now have to pay again to use the new bus and with them also increasing the price to ride, which is confusing enough as it is, considering they have four different price ranges for four different areas, that could get pretty expensive. I have also heard, though I cannot confirm at this time, that they are removing two of their train lines, thus clogging even more of their system and causing even more problems.
           
     They say they cannot afford to keep this stuff up like they have been, but what do they do when their passengers stop riding? Unfortunately, they know that will not happen because they know these people have to get around. Work, school, doctors, etc… People will pay and people will ride because they have no choice and TriMet takes full advantage of it. Well, that is all for now. I think I am done with my rant about the crappy service that is TriMet. It is rather funny though that TriMet claims they have people saying they are completely happy with the system. For all of the buses, trains and streetcars I have ridden and the many stops and transit centers I have been at, I have never heard one good thing about TriMet. All I have heard are complaints. People are sick and tired of you TriMet. You take advantage of the need for transportation and then you ignore us when we have problems with it because you make things unbearable. You need to wise up, because eventually, you WILL lose your customers. Not that you will listen to anything I have just written. You will probably laugh. Well, I hope you have fun because I plan on posting this everywhere on a daily basis.
Portland, OR TriMet Public Transportation Number One in Country... WHO ARE THEY KIDDING? • Sometimes me; sometimes fucking crazy...